Buyers of bogus degrees named [incl. people in govt., military, education]

Hundreds of people working in the military, government and education are on a list of almost 10,000 people who spent $7.3 million buying phony and counterfeit high school and college degrees from a Spokane diploma mill.

The complete list of buyers, which the U.S. Department of Justice has refused to release to the public, has been obtained by The Spokesman-Review.

"There are people in high places with these degrees, and only one of them has been charged with a crime," a source familiar with the list said Monday.

A preliminary analysis of the list by The Spokesman-Review shows 135 individuals with ties to the military, 39 with links to educational institutions and 17 employed by government agencies. Those numbers were derived from e-mail addresses that are part of the list obtained by the newspaper.

However, the exact number of individuals with ties to the military, government and education is believed to be far greater because many of those buyers used their personal e-mail accounts.